


what makes a monster not a monster

by aisu10



Category: Dane Gang - Fandom, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Gen, M/M, Transformation, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 12:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6566299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/pseuds/aisu10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“what did the headline say? 'green goblin takes two'?"</p><p>"they don't know it's me. upside of having monster transformation as a power."</p>
            </blockquote>





	what makes a monster not a monster

**Author's Note:**

> part of my andrew-detmer-is-a-vampire-turned-by-lucien-carr au. this time feat. harry osborn.

it's their first night in a new city and andrew's already getting antsy about their lack of a solid plan to avoid the impending daylight. lucien plucks a crumpled wet newspaper off the sidewalk and scans the front page. he quirks an eyebrow, and much to andrew's apprehension, a satisfied grin spreads across his face.  
  
"i know where we can find shelter."  
  
\--  
  
they find him exactly where lucien expected them to; standing in the alley beside the oscorp building, cradling a cigarette between two leather-gloved fingers. he stiffens as they approach, inhaling the scent of vampire mixed with the most expensive tobacco money can buy. his voice is ice, contrasting the heat of the smoke on his breath and the fresh blood in his veins.  
  
"this is my city."  
  
the blond stands his ground, meeting harry's gaze coolly as his young companion hovers motionlessly by his side with a camera held up to obscure his face.  
  
"we just want to borrow it for a few nights."  
  
harry scoffs, tosses aside his cigarette and stamps it out on the pavement.  
  
"i don't like sharing."  
  
harry takes a step toward them, then, and lucien unconsciously moves closer to andrew as the younger balls his free hand into a fist at his side. ignoring their tense demeanors, harry leans forward and sniffs at andrew, who glares daggers at him from behind his camera. he smells _new_ , with traces of his old human scent identifiable in his still-developing cells. harry wrinkles his nose and steps back.  
  
"he's young. real young. barely a year old."  
  
andrew’s expression twists into an indignant frown, but before he can say anything, lucien retorts, "you aren't too old yourself."  
  
harry doesn't respond to the assertion and instead tosses out another question, pointedly avoiding the younger's gaze to address the sire. "can he control himself?"  
  
"just as well as _you_ can,” lucien snaps, as andrew’s jaw tightens in response to harry’s condescension. “what did the headline say? 'green goblin takes two'?"  
  
harry isn't surprised that he figured it out, but is perturbed just the same.  
  
"they don't know it's me," he sneers, diverting them from his discomfort. "upside of having _monster transformation_ as a power."  
  
"what's the downside?" lucien asks, prying at the scab he's just uncovered on harry's pride.  
  
"the pain."  
  
lucien's gaze hardens along with his tongue. harry is silent for a moment, staring him down, before finally sighing.  
  
"you can stay with me for a couple days. but when you have to hunt, you have to _leave._ my body count is high enough already. i won't have you endangering my status."  
  
lucien purses his lips, arms crossing over his chest.  
  
"as you wish, _mr. osborn_ ," lucien purrs with a hint of mockery on his tone, just enough to be playful. " _say,_ do you happen to have a stash of _blood bags_ stuffed in those bottomless pockets? we could turn a couple days into a couple weeks. maybe get to know each other."  
  
he winks, slyly, maybe seductively. harry's mouth sets into a thin line, body stiffening along its lines.  
  
"dazzling doesn't work on vampires, you know."  
  
"indeed it _doesn't_ , which means your nerves are tingling due to my _natural charm_ alone."  
  
andrew gives a brief huff of laughter at that, relieved that their safety is now secured. harry turns away and begins to lead them into the building with a mutter of,  
  
"don't push your luck."  
  
\--  
  
no one ever asked why the heir was never seen outside, why he conducted his meetings at night and only transported himself in a limousine with tinted windows. no one ever asked why he'd gotten sick, or why he'd suddenly gotten better just a few weeks after his father succumbed to the same sickness.  
  
"extracted vampire venom," he tells lucien and andrew, who are the first living souls to learn of harry's miracle cure. "the vampire it was taken from was killed afterward. i have no sire."  
  
"neither do i," lucien replies. he's smoking one of those expensive cigarettes as they talk, ignoring harry's annoyance at the fact that he didn't take it outside. andrew is just sitting quietly beside him with his camera in his hands. he doesn't smoke and doesn't want to risk getting kicked out.  
  
"why not?" asks harry with clinical curiosity.  
  
lucien taps lackadaisically on his cigarette, letting the ashes fall to the polished tile floor. andrew sees harry's eye twitching. lucien either doesn't see or doesn't care, and answers flatly:  
  
"i killed him."  
  
harry doesn't know if this is a common thing, or if he should be shocked; but without any experience of the bond between sire and fledgeling to reference, he simply feels nothing. lucien then flicks the cigarette toward the boy beside him, who shares his facial features as if they were related.  
  
"about seventy years later, i made him."  
  
"he saved my life," andrew offers softly, speaking for the first time since they sat down.  
  
lucien gives a nod, looks over at his fledgeling, and for the first time drops his pretentious air to display genuine fondness, his eyes twinkling with gratitude and pride as he purrs, "and he saved mine."  
  
suddenly, harry feels something. it's _envy._ __  
  
\--  
  
their stay lasts more than a week. when andrew gets hungry, he suckles bagged blood from an old gym water bottle of harry's. lucien takes it in a glass with harry. it's the way the heir prefers to drink it; not because he's soft, but because, due to the nature of his transformation, his hunts are always rather _unpredictable_. andrew leaves most nights to explore the city with his camera and powers of flight; lucien stays in to talk to harry, teaching him about the vampire culture he's never been a part of due to his unusual birth. they become friends, or as close to friends as harry has allowed himself to have since peter. it's not enough to fill the hole in harry's unsynchronized heart, but it's _something._  
  
once he passes by the room he'd loaned to his guests and sees lucien lying on the bed in the pitch-darkness, glaring straight at him with eyes possessed by the fierce feral glow of a wild animal protecting its young. at first he thinks he's alone, but then he realizes that andrew, whom he's scarcely seen since he got there, is curled up against him, freshly-fed on warm blood and sleeping with his head on lucien's chest. harry feels like he's stumbled upon something very intimate and private, something not meant to be witnessed by anyone but the pair involved. from the doorway he can hear their double-heartbeat, thumping slow and steady in the otherwise-silent bedroom as lucien idly brushes his fingers through andrew's hair with utmost tenderness to contrast the dangerous glint in his gaze. they're so closely entangled that they may as well be one body, one soul, one being -- and harry can see at once that no matter how friendly he gets with him, lucien will always be closer to his fledgeling inside and out than harry will ever be to anyone.  
  
\--  
  
harry spends the rest of the day sifting through the research file oscorp kept on the vampire whose venom he used to save his life. there's pages and pages inside it detailing everything they learned about vampire biology from their subject, from the powers it exhibited to the length of its fangs and all the properties of its internal makeup -- all discovered through involuntary and inhumane testing. when he'd first read it, he'd felt no sympathy for the creature described. but now that he's seen what could have been, what _should_ have been, every word sends shivers of revulsion down his spine. he looks at the photo attached to the file and it's like looking into the mirrors he's no longer able to use and seeing his own transformed features projected on another's face. this vampire's dna is the author of every reborn cell in harry's body. this vampire, had his father's company not been so cruel, would have been his _sire._  
  
he tosses the file aside and wishes his system could still process straight liquor.  
  
\--  
  
"how do you make another vampire?"  
  
harry's more vulnerable tonight than lucien's ever seen him; as he questions lucien he sips fervently from his glass to calm a growling stomach that's tired of processed blood and longing for a drop of fresh. this is the first that lucien cannot answer, at least not easily.  
  
"now that, i can't teach you. it takes practice."  
  
it only takes harry a second to piece together the meaning of that statement. immediately he presses:  
  
"you've failed before?"  
  
this seems to be a touchier subject than the murder of his sire. while lucien’s voice held no remorse then, it now fills with pain and regret.  
  
"-- yes. several times."  
  
a distant look crosses his face and he stares toward the window like he's waiting for andrew to burst back in at any moment.  
  
"he's very talented," harry then says, referring to lucien's absent companion with jealousy. "i wish my power was as versatile."  
  
he pauses, then adds in a bitter undertone, "when i transform, i can't control myself at all."  
  
"show me," implores lucien, attention suddenly on harry again, icy blue eyes sparkling with interest. "i'll bet it's beautiful."  
  
"far from it," harry mumbles darkly. his leather-clad hands tremble on the stem of his glass. lucien tilts his head.  
  
"what's under the gloves?"  
  
"the only thing that doesn't change back."  
  
harry sets the glass down and peels one off, exposing himself to lucien in a way he hasn't to anyone. he wants to prove his point, show him the ugliness of his power, and in the meantime gain his trust. he extends his hand and bares the curved, green-tinted claws protruding from his fingertips.  
  
"i can't cut them," he tells him somberly, "they just grow back."  
  
lucien takes his hand in his own and gazes down at it, runs the soft pad of his thumb over the razor-edges of harry's monstrous talons, and says, "this is what you are. you _chose_ to become a vampire. you shouldn't hide it."  
  
"my _choice_ was between this or _death."_  
  
"at least you _had_ a choice."  
  
lucien's voice is quiet, as vulnerable as harry's exposed secret, as his own defenseless fingertips skimming the tips of his deadly claws.  
  
"this is what you are, and it's _beautiful."_ __  
  
\--  
  
"he's not yours," andrew hisses vehemently when he catches one of harry's longing glances toward lucien as he walks away. "this may be _your city_ but you don't own everything that passes through it."  
  
he's crouched on the rail of the balcony like a gargoyle, not partaking in the smoke break that harry and lucien, who has finally been convinced to take his cigarettes outside, had been participating in before lucien wandered off to search for a drink of blood to wet his tongue. harry bristles with distaste at being talked to so sternly by a practically _newborn_ vampire, but the threat behind andrew's icy blue eyes is real and so he swallows his pride despite the bitter taste it leaves on his tongue that has nothing to do with tobacco.  
  
"i know that," harry says quietly.  
  
andrew gives him one more glare before hopping off the railing and following lucien inside. harry drops his stub off the balcony. lucien may not be his, may never be his, but that won't stop him from craving lucien's attention as much as blood. he's been like a surrogate sire to him in the weeks that he's visited and he can't help but attach his blooming fledgeling feelings to him. he wants his approval, his admiration. he wants his gaze to linger on him the way it lingers on andrew, as if the blood beneath his flesh was still edible to lucien's hungry eyes. he wants him to find him _beautiful._ so when the urge overtakes him the night thereafter, when his spine seizes and his skin begins to itch and burn, he gives in. writhing and screaming on his office floor as lucien looks on in perverse wonder, he transforms.  
  
it's gruesome and violent, unlike any power lucien has ever seen. he wonders if harry's lack of a sire is what made him this way; if the fact that he never shared a heart to begin with is what corrupted his power and made it torturous for him to perform. lucien's own heart races at the sight and calls andrew back to him; the fledgeling enters through the window just in time for harry to open slitted green eyes and hiss at him like an animal, mind completely lost. satisfaction curls in lucien's stomach like smoke, and he feels proud like he had when andrew had given into his instincts and filled his belly with blood for the first time. andrew moves to lucien's side, protective and wary at the same time; but harry doesn't attack them, still recovering from his transformation. his ears are curved and pointed, his skin pale and sickly green; his fangs, ejected from his gums, curl over his lips like a sabertooth tiger's. he's a perfect predator; a true savage _beast_ out for blood. lucien turns to andrew, eyes bright and wild.  
  
"he's _magnificent,_ isn't he?"  
  
andrew doesn't get to respond, for at that same moment the door swings open and one of harry's less loyal board members walks in to argue a recent company decision at exactly the wrong time.  
  
there's no stopping him. the monster lunges and the intruder screams, and before either bystanding vampire can even think of interfering, the human's throat has been torn apart and their life is spilling out on the floor. harry laps it all up, swallowing gore and blood alike before digging his fangs into his victim's neck and sucking out the rest.  
  
realizing what this will mean for harry's public image, how much of a problem this will cause him, lucien immediately regrets coercing him into transforming. but it's too late now, and all he can do is grip andrew's hand and watch in stunned silence as the feral vampire drains his business partner. it's as beautiful as he thought it would be, as terrible as harry said it would be.  
  
once harry's thirst has been sated, he rips his fangs from his prey's throat and gasps for air, breath rattling in his chest. as the pair of vampires look on, the color of his skin shifts from green to blood-warmed pink; his fangs shrink and recede along with his protruding spine until all that's left of his beastly form are the claws clutched around his victim's shoulders. once his mind escapes the haze, he scans the mutilated face of his victim and gives a strangled cry of horror. this was someone he knew. someone he _needed_ to maintain his carefully crafted public image, to keep the green goblin separate from _harry osborn_. and he'd thrown all of it away for the first person who showed him a bit of affection.  
  
face still dripping with the blood of his meal and the sweat of his transformation, he whips around to the watching vampires and growls,  
  
"leave the city. tonight."  
  
lucien pales, raises a hand in caution. "harry --"  
  
furious that he's even daring to argue, harry barks,  
  
_"tonight!"_  
  
andrew tugs lucien's hand in an iron grip; lucien's lip trembles and he gives harry one last look of apology as andrew pulls him from the room.  
  
tears sting harry's eyes as lucien disappears from his blurry vision, leaving him alone to face his foolish mistakes. he should have never let them stay, he thinks to himself, heart pumping madly with renewed blood and self-hatred. he should have never have let lucien make him believe that he might be more than just a terrible, ugly  _monster_. he stares down at the claws dug into the body beneath him and although he's full of blood, he feels emptier than ever before.


End file.
